Poetry: notes

Shape of a poem

• Line and stanza: a stanza is a group of lines, like a paragraph in a poem.
• Rhyme scheme: the pattern of end sounds. Lines that rhyme as pairs are marked aabb.
• Refrain: a line or phrase repeated through the poem.
• Free verse: no fixed rhyme or rhythm.
• Enjambment: a sentence runs on past the end of a line.

Kinds of poem

• Sonnet: 14 lines.
• Ballad: a story told in short stanzas.
• Elegy: a sad poem about someone who has died.
• Praise poem: honours a person, a clan or a place, common in African tradition.
• Lyric: a short poem of personal feeling.

Voice

• Persona or speaker: the voice talking in the poem, not always the poet.
• Rhythm: the beat made by stressed and unstressed syllables.

Reading a poem

• Ask who speaks, to whom, about what, and how the sound and shape help the meaning.